As a part of the ongoing project on my truck, I want to repaint the body, wheels and frame to prevent rust and make it look better since the paint has totally lost it's shine and is peeling in spots. I've read some articles about painting cars but there were some things that I couldn't find the answers to, even with google searching. I want to do the prep work and paint job at home for cost (the cheapest bodyshop in my area wants $400, and they are known for their poor work lasting only a year or so). I figure I might as well try and do it myself, I can always have it done professionally later if it looks bad. I just want to get some recommendations and get some questions answered.

Here are my questions:

I am planning on using Ace Hardware brand gloss blue tractor paint and primer (plus thinner and hardener based on the instructions). Will it look shiny when waxed like normal auto paint? Some examples online looked decent.

What respirator (if any) do I need for painting with enamel tractor paint? (Indoors since it's winter) The package says it is harmful, and I don't want to end up with two brain cells while I'm still young.

Will an HVLP sprayer from HF and a 10 gallon compressor be enough to paint with?

Do I need to strip the entire body to bare metal, or just the areas with paint peeling and rust? If I don't need to strip it all the way, what do I need to do?

For the areas with surface rust, here is my plan: sand away the paint and rust, apply naval jelly, put down some special anti-rust spray then prime and paint like normal. Will that work?

Undercoating: does it protect the frame, or is it just a pain in the a** that traps moisture? I've heard mixed things.

Is there any way to repair the small amount of rusty/flaking chrome on the bumper besides total replacement?

Thanks for reading, sorry for having so many questions I'm just inexperienced and I want to learn how to do it right. Thanks again.

 

1. I don't know anything about tractor paint. I rolled on Rustoleum Aluminum onto my truck, thinned 50/50 with mineral spirits. It came out nice enough for me, but don't use Aluminum. You cant sand it because it's metallic (it just develops dark spots when sanded), and I had not known this before hand. I plan to repaint gray (non-metallic) next year and I will definitely use Rustoleum. It is holding up awesome and even without sanding it looks pretty dang good to me. Roller marks are still visible on the hood though, just couldn't roll those out.

2. Good question about the respirator. I use a 3M paint respirator.

3. I've never sprayed because of the fact I only have a small compressor. There are many reasons why I chose not to paint with my compressor. First and foremost, the air NEEDS to be contaminant and water free. This means you gotta buy water separators and have enough length of hose to keep the air cool and liquify and vapor. You will otherwise certainly end up with contaminated paint. Besides that, you'll be waiting for the compressor to catch up ALL the time. I would say absolutely not on the small compressor and HVLP gun. But YMMV.

4. Don't need to strip to bare metal. Do necessary body work, sand then paint. For my roller I wet sanded 180 grit, then 320, then painted. Between coats I would've sanded with progressively finer grit, but as I mentioned, the metallic paint did not sand well.

5. I just sanded all paint including surface rust and then rolled, no primer except on the roof which was all rusty.

6. I would never recommend an undercoating that dries except a very quality undercoating properly applied on a pristine and clean undercarriage. I personally use Fluid Film, twice every winter. It stays liquid so it never traps any ****, it'll accumulate a thin layer of dust but won't become disgusting like old oil. I did a frame-off restore on my truck and painted the outside and inside of the frame, but I still am completely **** about keeping Fluid Film on it when winter hits. This is no garage queen, it's a truck I want use as a truck and to last me for years and years.

7. Not as far as I know. My rear bumper was shot to ****, I got a universal Westin replacement and it worked with the stock rear bumper mounts, just had to drill one hole on each mount. My front bumper has a couple rust pinholes, not too worried about it but I will probably replace it eventually.

Before.



After.

 

Definitely don't strip to bare metal, except where there's rust or the need to repair. The factory paint and primer is usually the best surface for new paint to adhere to. Sand the paint with progressively finer wet and dry paper. You can start with something like 220, and end with something like 400. Too course of a grit will leave sanding marks showing through the paint, but you do want to provide adequate roughness or "tooth" for the primer and paint to get a grip on.

Where you do have to sand deeper, remember that bare metal begins to rust the moment it is exposed to air and humidity, which is essentially the moment you sand through to it. Painting over bare metal requires care be taken to keep the rust at bay, and preferably, you'll then want to etch the metal surface for priming. You can certainly treat with Naval Jelly (or a metal-prep solvent, which is a liquid vice jelly), just be sure to remove it once it has done its job. Then prime bare metal as soon as possible; I like to use self-etching primer.

As far as undercoat, yes, the debate still goes on. I tend to agree that undercoat, especially if its not carefully applied, will increase problems with moisture and rust. Prep is the important part of any paint job, including whatever coating you use on the undercarriage. Heavy undercoat sprayed on a poorly prepped frame will crack, letting water sit and start the rusting cycle. I prefer to get after the rust by thoroughly cleaning the frame and under-body, wire brushing (or sanding), and brushing on something like Eastwood's brush-on frame paint. Of course, the heavier the rust the more involved this process will be.

I'm still amazed at the results of your roll-on job tbugden! Looks good.

 

I don't see a shine! Personally i think it's crazy but to each his own. I would never use rustolem to paint a vehicle (or any paint found in a hardware store). Just get an automotive paint. Yes it is more expensive but you will get better results. If you can get the (rusty)body work down to bare metal use a epoxy primer. It has superior grip and will preform better then non epoxy primers. Temperature is a another factor to take in to consideration. Temps in your state now cant be over 50 some degrees or so. How do you plan on painting a car with no ventilation? You will get in a few passes with the gun then wont be able to see anything. Painting a large surface like a vehicle needs a decent amount of pressure that a 10 gallon compressor will not keep up with. If i where you i would post pone it till the spring and do some reading on painting and such. By then you will be better prepared and have a better understanding of how to go about it. Practice on something that's not important first, It will pay off when you do paint the truck. Just my $.02 worth.

 

I researched six ways to Sunday and I still decided to do Rustoleum. And I'm glad I did, just not glad I went with metallic. I'm happy with it because it looks a crapton better than it did, and because I never planned on doing much body work to it, so I didn't want to spend money on good paint to go over dents and dings. $200 for every bit I needed; paint, sandpaper, rollers, trays, mixing cups, mineral spirits...

I'm also very happy that it dried and cured as hard as a rock. And I never planned on it being shiny. It's perfect for a banged up old truck.

 

you can do a pretty decent paint job yourself for about $600.00. check out Thecoatingstore on Ebay or your local Napa will have plenty of paint and supplies. If the factory finish is in pretty bad shape I strip it down to bare metal. sand the bare metal with 40 grit on a D/A sander then spray with an epoxy primer. you can do your filler over the epoxy or bare metal before the epoxy I prefer bare metal the epoxy plugs up sand paper when you sand into it. after the epoxy spray a 2k urethane primer with in 3 days of spraying the epoxy otherwise you will have to scuff up the epoxy before spraying the 2k. let the 1st coat of 2k dry for a good 3-4 weeks it shrinks up a lot. (you'll see things you already blocked out if you block it to soon) another option for a secondary primer would be a 2k polyurethane this does not shrink up and sprays on very thick you can start blocking as soon as it has dried. I use a combination of all 3 primers. but using one or the other will still produce a pretty straight finish. urethane is good if you had minimal bodywork to do. after your primer has cured spray a light guide coat. I like to us SEM in an aresol can. start block sanding with 320 grit if you sand through the secondary primer spray some more in that area and block sand it some more unless it doesn't look like another coat will make it straight use thin coat of a good glaze coat filler. after all the blocking is done sand it again with 400 grit then your ready for paint. you also want to keep things as clean as possible between coats. I use acetone for bare metal and to clean my guns and green envy thinner (menards sells it) in between primers also wipe down the truck with tack cloths before paint. After the truck is painted you can wet sand and buff to a mirror finish but that's a whole nother process and more $ in meterials. also a 10 gallon compressor is too small. I've painted with a 30 gallon before but I was constantly adjusting the pressure at the gun. I use a 5hp 60 gallon single stage in my garage with no problems youll also should use some kind of air drier but you can probably get away with desposable filters on the gun

 

If your paint has just lost its shine and that is what you want to fix. It would be worth it for you to first get a proper buffer and some buffing compound to see if it is just oxidation on the surface of your clear coat. Maybe use some super fine wet sanding paper, followed by buffing. If that doesn't work??? Tbugden looks like he did a good job in spite of the roller.

Tips
1 Start with 120 then go up 220 & 400. It is hard to see fine grain paper working. A guy I worked for would use a can of black to spray from a long distance to leave a coating of small specs to let him know he was getting the whole thing cleaned up. the finer paper takes a while and those spots help let you know the low and high spots in the metal as well. A good bright light you can move around to shine at different angles helps too.
2 I have a ten gallon compressor and a sprayer. It would not generate and hold enough pressure to pressurize the sprayer. You'll need something that can let you put out more than the necessary working PSI in use without having to constantly run.
3 rattle cans work well if you are careful. The important thing after prep (the MOST important part of the job is prep) is to do the work in as draft free and environment as you can. After you sand wash it with soap them let it dry and wipe it down with mineral spirits or acetone. Use self etching primer. Spray a light coat just barely visible. Let it dry, and slowly build up from there trying to ignore what it looks like. get a test piece you will see it looks much different dry having filled in a lot of lines that show when wet. Start and stop the spray off the piece being painted and make sure you rotate your wrist so that the sprayer is pointed at the work at the same angle for the entire length of the line you are spraying. Edit- Use a piece of flat wood to wrap the sand paper around if you don't have sanding blocks.

 

Hmm, thanks for the tips. I got a decent HVLP spray kit and compressor for another project I've been working on and my set up works pretty good. I've found that the tanks size matters less than how much air it can move, so my 20 gal/4 scfm compressor works. I think I can use this sprayer set up to spray my truck.
I'm not gonna want to **** around with urethane paint or primer; I don't really want to expose myself to the isocynates in urethanes. For paint I may try spraying rustoleum, tractor paint, or some other enamel which is less toxic than the urethanes. The most dangerous things in most enamels is the paint thinner (Xylol or Toulene) which I think a regular mask can protect against. Although Tbungen's turned out pretty well, I think even bad spray jobs look better than most roll-on jobs.

 

The urethane and polyester primers is how you get a nice straight finish. I'm not really sure what an isocynates are. Maybe the polyester is less toxic I don't know. I usually stack the two together but you can use polyester and seal coat it with epoxy. Eastwood makes a low VOC epoxy which doesn't seem like it's very toxic and it's still sticky as hell. I can spray that one with a paper mask. I usually wear a 3m charcoal respirator when I'm spraying base coats and clears. Doesn't seem any different than breathing clean air so I think it filters out the bad stuff pretty well. Anyway regardless what kind of top coat you decide to do Rust-Oleum or otherwise. I highly recommend a good epoxy primer for a base. A good base is the most important part of a paint job and stay within the recommended recoat times. This epoxy sticks to bare metal and old paint very well and it also creates a chemical bond to your top coat as long as you do your top coat within the recommended time frame.(usually 3 days) lastly if you find yourself struggling with the smaller compressor with the gun you have Eastwood sells a gun designed to run off minimal cfm. I'd try that before moving to the top coat if it proves to be an issue.

http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-concours-hvlp-spray-paint-gun-1-2-and-1-4-tips.html

Never tried this one but it seems to have pretty good reviews.